


Chaos Theory

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Metaphysical Determinism [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, its v soft but also just like a teensy bit cracky if im being honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: 4 times Logan did magic on the fly+1 time Virgil did
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders, Background Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Metaphysical Determinism [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668148
Comments: 44
Kudos: 499
Collections: SoDoRoses Oneshots





	Chaos Theory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blinksinbewilderment (probablyonearth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/probablyonearth/gifts).



> a secret santa gift for @blinksinbewilderment ! im super double ULTRA glad you liked it Blink!!!
> 
> Also if you have notifs for me on and thought this was gonna be the second chapter of _Reflections_ its coming i just [runs away]

Virgil liked to think he understood magic.

And he was _good_ at magic. Good enough to run the coffee shop, and it wasn’t like there was a _dearth_ of kitchen witches running cafes in a college town. It was almost trite. Apothe-Cafe was successful because Virgil and Patton were good witches and good bakers, thank you very much. Virgil knew what he was doing.

Magic was careful, precise measurements and passed down recipes, metric scales and the most _cautious_ experimentation possible. Virgil and Patton had debated for three days about whether or not to increase the ratio of walnuts-to-sugar in one of their their studying-pastries, and Virgil had only eventually capitulated because Patton had agreed to sell them at a discount until they were sure the adjustment didn’t throw off the whole spell.

They were popular enough to have both regulars and folks who just walked in, but it was admittedly a little weird for a newbie to come in during midterms. College students were creatures of habit around testing weeks, in Virgil’s experience.

And this guy was _absolutely_ a student. A grad student, too – Virgil could always tell, they were especially twitchy.

He had no less than three pens on him Virgil could immediately see – one behind his ear, one stuck through his bun, and one hooked to the collar of his shirt. His clothing was rumpled, and he had that overall-frazzled, slightly haunted look of a person not even halfway done with a gauntlet and staring down the rest.

“Hi, welcome to Apothe-Cafe, how can I help you?” said Virgil.

Frazzled-grad-student squinted up at the menu through his thick framed glasses.

“I have a request you may find odd,” he said.

“I doubt that,” deadpanned Virgil, “What is it?”

“I would like the smallest size of green tea that you have,” he said, “But I would like for you to put it in the largest cup,”

Virgil blinked.

“If you must charge me for the bigger size, I understand,”

“Uh, no?” said Virgil, “I’ll just make it in the small and give you an extra large cup on the side, how’s that?”

“Ideal,”

“Name?”

Virgil rang it up. This wasn’t actually that weird of a request. Virgil knew there was an ice mage regular who made a similar one, though she just asked for the cup to be topped off with cool water after the tea steeped. Virgil wasn’t sure why this guy – Logan - wanted empty space (maybe an air thing?) but it wasn’t really any of his business.

Virgil called out his name, and handed Logan the two cups.

Instead of taking them and walking off, Logan set them down on the pick up window, fishing around in his bag. Virgil was a little irritated, but at least it was during a slight lull in how busy they were.

Logan let out a quiet, victorious noise and pulled a can of red bull and a… glass bottle full of something faintly glittering.

Okay. Now Virgil was a little weirded out.

He couldn’t look away – it was like watching a particularly comical car crash, as Logan emptied the red bull and green tea into the larger cup, uncorked the glass vial and sprinkled some in.

“What is that?” blurted Virgil.

“Powdered light,” said Logan absently, “May I borrow your marker?”

Virgil handed it to him, still slightly gaping and too stunned to protest.

“Thank you,”

Logan scribbled a chain of symbols across the cup, too messy for Virgil to decipher – at least until the drink gave off a stutter of sparks and started smoking, and Virgil realized they were _alchemical_ symbols and _this_ guy was a _fucking wizard_.

“Did you just do alchemy in the middle of my shop, with a _sharpie?_ ” said Virgil, strangled.

“Yes,” said Logan.

And then he downed the drink.

“Oh, toil and _ten_ kinds of trouble,” muttered Virgil. Fucking _wizards._ They were all _batshit_.

Logan cocked his head, looking sort of nonchalantly around the room and swirling the last of his… _whatever_ potion in the cup.

“Uh, are your eyes supposed to be pink?” Virgil choked out.

Logan beamed.

“No,” he said, with barely contained enthusiasm, “That’s never happened before,”

Virgil felt slightly faint.

Logan had pulled out his phone and was now examining his baby-pink eyes in the front facing camera.

“Fascinating,”

He leaned across the pick-up window, a little too close to strictly be polite.

“What brand of green tea do you serve here?” he said intensely, still wearing a smile that was just a touch manic.

Somehow, Virgil got the feeling they’d acquired a new regular, and the thought made him want to break out a calming potion and cry in the back room.

—

The next time Logan (also known in Virgil’s mind as ‘Batshit Wizard Grad Student’) decided to shave several years off of Virgil’s life with his complete lack of self preservation in magic – or _other people’s preservation_ for that matter – it was because he’d decided it was a brilliant idea to do magic on _Patton_.

It was only about seven PM, but the late-autumn sky didn’t seem to have gotten the memo, and it was pitch black outside. Logan was hanging his head out the half-open front door, too far away for Virgil to make out what he was saying.

Patton was listening with rapt attention, the dish cloth he was supposed to be wiping down tables with hanging limp in his grip. Logan left the front door, darting over to the counter.

“Thanks for shutting the door,” said Virgil, “We’re not paying to heat the whole outdoors,”

Virgil’s usual response to uncomfortable situations was, in fact, sarcasm. And if anybody on the whole planet made Virgil feel more off-kilter and twitchy than the guy who treated ceremonial magic like middle schoolers treated those DIY-kits of self-care potions you could buy at the dollar store, Virgil very much _did not want to meet them._

“I would like to purchase a bottle of water,” said Logan.

He paused.

“A brand that is blue, if you have it,”

“Why?” said Virgil, wary.

Logan smiled a little, puzzled.

“You have never asked me the purpose of my purchases before,”

 _Because you didn’t have that “I’m about to cause chaos in this coffee shop” look in your eyes, barring that first time,_ thought Virgil a little hysterically.

But he just mumbled an apology and handed Logan a bottle from the fridge behind the counter, watching with a not-insignificant amount of trepidation as he practically skipped off to the window.

Logan and Patton were close enough for Virgil to hear now, and he was not enjoying what he was hearing.

“I’ve never seen someone do magic like this,” said Patton, sounding nervous but also a little awed.

“It is considered somewhat dangerous,” said Logan, like he was commenting on the weather, “But I am relatively certain the is a low probability of these components combining in such a way that it will hurt you,”

Virgil took several deep breaths, crossing the room.

“What are you doing?” he said flatly.

Patton beamed.

“Logan’s gonna try and fix my cat allergy!”

Well. That explained Patton’s willingness to participate in this _insanity._

“With a bottle of _water?_ ” said Virgil, "That medical magic, and you think you can do it with a bottle of Dasani and a window sill?”

“I have little faith it will _cure_ the allergy,” said Logan, “But I may be able to mitigate it,”

“What are the components?” demanded Virgil, “Do you even know the moon phase right now?”

“Yes, I just went outside to check,” said Logan.

Virgil could have screamed.

“The moon is in Virgo,” said Logan, “A Virgo rules the sixth house, which governs health – blue and water are both purifying,”

“And how many times, exactly, have you done this spell?” said Virgil.

Logan smiled placidly.

“Never,” he said, “You can’t do the same spell twice,”

Virgil gaped.

“That makes _no_ sense. Of course you can do the same spell twice,”

“No, you can’t,” said Logan, “You will _never_ be able to reproduce the exact, precise circumstances under which you performed a spell the first time. The star chart, the cloud cover, the wind direction, what you were wearing, how long ago you bathed. It simply isn’t possible,”

He shrugged.

“And any one of those things could influence the spell. The best way to perform magic is to understand the underlying _principles_ , the framework of the universe whose statistical probabilities we are attempting to influence. That way, no matter the current conditions, you can produce something that will be at least marginally effective,”

A timer on Logan’s watch beeped. He leaned over and grabbed the bottle, passing it to Patton.

“Here you are,” he said, “You have the notepad I gave you?”

“Yeah!” said Patton brightly.

“Good,” said Logan, smiling, “Please fill it out to the best of your ability over the next week, and text me when you have completed it. I will pick it up and provide you with another,”

“Are you _experimenting_ on my _brother?_ ” said Virgil shrilly.

“Technically, yes” said Logan, shrugging, “Would you prefer I perform magic on him and _not_ record the results?”

“Wait- you have Logan’s _number?_ ” said Virgil, turning to Patton.

“Well, yeah!” said Patton, “He was talking about chaos theory the other day, and well- I mean, I know it’s _wizard_ stuff, and I’m not exactly a, uh, academic, but it was _really_ interesting, and-”

Patton continued, and Logan kept on smiling placidly, and Virgil knew right away that this team-up was going to kill him.

Patton lasted in their friend Elliot’s apartment a whole three hours longer than normal, even with Buttercup purring away in his lap. Patton beamed the whole time, and Virgil tried not to fume.

—

” _Why_ do you have chalk and a blackboard out _in my shop?_ ” shrieked Virgil.

“It’s raining,”

“I know!” said Virgil, “I’m aware that it’s raining! I am _not_ aware of what that has to do with you _free-handing an alchemy circle._ In. My. _Shop!_ ”

“Oh, I’m not,” said Logan, “This is theurgy, not alchemy. See the runes?”

Virgil put his face in his hands and groaned.

“You,” he said flatly, “Are making a divine phone call. To get it to stop raining?”

“Not stop,” said Logan, “Merely to be a little lighter. I have to walk back to my apartment, and my backpack is not waterproof. It contains some important papers for my thesis,”

“Which is what?” said Virgil, “How to make witches have a heart attack every time you open your mouth?”

“One moment,” said Logan, as the scribbled circle began to glow faintly. Virgil hadn’t had the occasion to hear much ritual Latin, but he got the feeling that it wasn’t usually delivered so calmly.

The glowing brightened for a moment, and then flared orange and sputtered out like a dying candle.

There was a crack of thunder outside, and the heavy rain turned into an outright downpour.

“Well,” said Logan, “That was not effective,”

“Gee, you think?” said Virgil, “Can’t believe the weather god was insulted by you acting like they take _requests_. Who did you even contact?”

Logan leaned over and flicked through his notebook.

“Um. Tempestas,”

“You asked the _goddess of storms,_ said Virgil, "To _lighten up on the rain?_ ”

Logan frowned.

“Politely,” he said, a little petulant.

“How are you alive?” said Virgil. Try as he might, he could keep the faintly impressed note out of his voice.

Logan shrugged.

“A fluke of probability,” said Logan, “As all things,”

“I still don’t buy chaos theory,”

“It isn’t something you 'buy,’” said Logan, amused, “It is a branch of mathematical magic, it is true whether you believe it or not,”

“But if everything is chance, then what’s the point of magic anyway?” said Virgil, “If my pastries helping people study was a coin flip, nobody would buy them,”

“No, no, that is precisely the point,” said Logan, quickly swiping his chalkboard clear with his sleeve and coming closer. He was so enthusiastic already, Virgil leaned toward across the counter automatically.

“Your pastries are not a coin flip,” said Logan eagerly, “The odds of them failing are much, much lower, specifically because you are so meticulous about the exact measurements, and Patton mentioned you take the time of day into account, as well? It’s very admirable,”

Virgil felt his face burn a little brighter.

“But,” said Logan, “As I’m sure you know, kitchen witchcraft does have _variable_ success. It works less effectively on some than it does others, and in different ways. The studying pastries may give one student the motivation to make flash cards, and another the presence of mind to take breaks rather than overwhelm themselves,”

“Well… yeah,” said Virgil.

“Have you never wondered _why?_ ” said Logan, eyes shining.

Virgil hadn’t. Logan clearly had, and the look on his face made Virgil think, a little distantly, that Logan probably wondered about a lot of things. That ‘wonder’ was maybe Logan’s default state of being. Wonder and curiosity and being bursting with questions and- _shit._

“I suppose you have a guess?” croaked Virgil.

Logan beamed.

“No,” he said, “I have a _hypothesis,”_

Virgil laughed.

“Of course you do,” he said, far, far too fondly. Logan didn’t seem to notice.

He slid into one of the stools at the counter, excitedly starting in on, of all things, a crash course in human digestion, and Virgil tried to focus on the impromptu lesson and not the fact that he had definitely developed a crush on the Batshit Wizard Grad Student.

He was _so_ screwed.

—

Impromptu lessons while Virgil was wiping down tables, became impromptu lessons when Virgil’s shift ended and Logan could drag him into a booth, became scheduled lessons when Logan gave Virgil those small bright smiles of barely-contained delight and asked if he would like to continue tomorrow.

Virgil always said yes. How could he not?

Virgil sipped at his tea - just tea, this time, not a calming potion. He need calming potions a _lot_ around Logan, who made his heart stutter and his face burn, but the last thing he needed was to develop a dependence on them, or drink enough of them that they started interfering with his _prescription_ anxiety potions. If he ever had to explain to the psych healer that he was practically mainlining lavender because of a cute boy, he’d probably actually die of embarrassment.

“So, you, a chaos wizard, don’t believe in _luck?_ ” said Virgil, incredulous.

“Of course not,” said Logan, “'Luck’ is just an inaccurate layman’s term for chaos theory,”

“But that’s still… luck,” said Virgil, “Luck, chaos, probability - they’re all synonyms,”

“They aren’t,” said Logan, “Luck implies there is no reason for the things that happen. Chaos theory allows us to understand that there _is_ a reason for everything – it’s simply that there are so many innumerable factors that they are impossible to analyze,”

“Then it comes down to the same thing!” said Virgil, laughing a little.

“Not remotely!” said Logan, and when he leaned forward Virgil realized their heads were already pretty darn close together across the table. But Logan had leaned in and it would be weird if Virgil moved away, right?

Right. Maybe.

“Luck magicians misattribute chaos to luck,” said Logan, “And so they are focused on influencing the probability itself, rather than attempting to alter the factors that make _up_ that probability. It’s certainly not impossible to do it that way, but mathematics are a _deeply_ stubborn branch of magic, and they do not take to change easily at all. Comparatively speaking, luck magic is useless when taken next to chaos magic,”

Logan’s hands were fidgeting like they always did when he got really into explaining something, but there was something off about it. He was drawing loops in his notebook, but they were a lot less… smooth, than usual.

“What if you don’t know what the factors are?” said Virgil.

Logan titled his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Well-”

Virgil waved a hand around.

“I can’t think of an example, but like- if you go into a situation completely, totally blind. You have no idea what factors you might try to- fiddle with, to get the result you want. Wouldn’t it make sense to use luck magic then?”

Logan gave a sort of unsure nod.

“It wouldn’t be nearly as effective,”

“I didn’t say it would,” said Virgil, gesturing at Logan with his cup, “But _you_ said luck magic was useless, and I feel like calling a whole branch of magic pointless is probably not-”

He waved one hand around.

“What is it you always say? Objective? Seems like you’re biased,”

Logan considered.

“You make a compelling point,” he said, a little faint.

Virgil blushed a little, taking a sip of his tea to save himself from having to respond and possibly making a fool of himself.

“… May I borrow a marker?” said Logan quietly.

Virgil gave him a quizzical look, glancing at Logan’s empty cup.

“You’re not doing any alchemy on _my_ tea,” said Virgil warily.

Logan smiled softly.

“I won’t,” he said.

He took the marker Virgil offered, and Virgil watched a little curiously as Logan started to write out a grid, and then fill it with letters.

Virgil didn’t press him, because by now he was… about 70% sure Logan wasn’t going to blow up the shop, but bothering him in the middle often made more bizarre things happen.

It took several moments of watching for Virgil to realize Logan was making a _sigil_. And a deeply informal one, too, it looked like he was just using the English alphabet – Virgil didn’t think he’d ever seen Logan use anything less academic than Latin when he did magic.

Logan finished, scribbling the completed sigil over his pulse point on his left wrist, and then looked up at Virgil and spoke, without any preamble at all.

“Would you like to accompany me on a romantic outing?”

Virgil choked.

Logan’s face was rapidly turning crimson, but he didn’t flinch or look away. Virgil’s own face felt so hot he could have used it to _bake_ , and it took him several moments of trying to find his voice and speak _words_ before he realized it was just not going to happen.

Instead, he nodded, rapid and entirely too enthusiastic.

Logan smiled so wide Virgil briefly felt his heart stop in his chest completely, and he let out and honest-to-gods giggle before he could stop himself.

“I am- I am very glad,” said Logan, his voice thick, “And will concede that luck magic is useful, on occasion,”

Virgil laughed outright, stunned. He leaned over to look closer at the sigil’s composition in the notebook.

“You dork,” he said, his voice absolutely besotted, “You did _not_ need luck for that,”

—

Virgil didn’t think about it.

Which was really probably the most telling part of the situation.

He was always a little out of it in the morning, especially before coffee. He grumbled under his breath as he made his way from the bedroom to the kitchen, frowning deeply when he entered and the pot was almost empty.

“Sorry, dear,” said Logan sheepishly, immediately standing to come kiss Virgil good morning.

Virgil barely registered the apology in favor of accepting the kiss and then pressing his nose into his boyfriend’s cheek with a sigh. It took several moments for Logan’s sentence to properly register.

“Why’re y'sorry?” Virgil mumbled.

Logan laughed, kissing Virgil on the temple, and Virgil’s heart swelled with affection so fiercely that he almost didn’t hear Logan again.

“Drinking all the coffee,” said Logan fondly, “You’re up earlier than usual, I hadn’t made the second pot yet,”

“Oh,” said Virgil, “S'fine,”

Logan kissed his forehead again, and then a few on his cheek, and Virgil resisted the urge to preen under his attention.

“If you release me,” said Logan, amused, “I can rectify the coffee situation,”

Virgil whined.

“I will return momentarily,” Logan soothed, detaching himself from Virgil.

Virgil let out another petulant noise, but he let Logan slip out of his arms. He opted to sit at the table, his chin resting on his hand and too tired to care that he was openly staring, soft and adoring, at his boyfriend as Logan pulled down the coffee supplies and began to set up the machine.

Everything was fine, until an ill-timed chime from Logan’s phone startled him. Logan has already taken the pot off the heating element to fill it in the sink - the jolt made him step back, and his forearm landed square on the still-heated circle.

“ _Shit_ ,” he yelped.

Virgil moved without thinking about it at all.

He grabbed blindly at the cupboard of tea and barely scanned it before grabbing a bag of mint, pressing it firmly to his mouth and counting to three, before lunging for Logan and lifting up his boyfriends arm to lay a kiss on the burn.

He _felt_ the chill pass from his lips to the skin of Logan’s arm, and Logan relaxing in his grip. Virgil pulled back, his heart still hammering, and looked at the burn – no longer an angry, blistered crimson, but more of a blush pink, the skin barely raised.

Silence reigned, and it took another three seconds for Virgil to realize what he’d done.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he blurted.

Logan was grinning from ear to ear.

“ _Virgil!_ ” he exclaimed, breathless, “That was _medical_ magic, how on _Earth_ did you-”

“I don’t know!” exclaimed Virgil, hysterical.

“And you did it with a tea bag and no other components!” said Logan, equal in volume and clearly leagues more pleased about this than Virgil was.

“It had to have been an empathetic response!” continued Logan, rocking slightly, “Your distress influencing the spell, that is _fascinating_ \- come here, let me find a notebook, you have to write it down while it’s still fresh-”

He started fishing around in the drawers, chattering away, and Virgil tried to keep a lid on his freak-out and not ruin it.

He’d done a spell. A _medical_ spell, with no prep, no ingredients list, no _recipe_ , just - just practically the first cheap bag of herbs he’d laid hands on and the sheer overwhelming need for Logan to _not be in pain._

Virgil swallowed.

“…Virgil?”

Virgil blinked at him.

Logan brows were pinched. Slowly, he set down the notepad.

“I’m sorry,” said Logan, “I- I became distracted by my enthusiasm. You seem upset, are you okay?”

Yes, he was. Yes, _fine,_ and that was the _thing_ , was that Virgil had never done so much as make a wish on a bay leaf without double and _triple_ checking that everything was _just so_ , and here he was, just over a year into know this- this absolutely _insane_ chaos wizard and he was just! Throwing around medical magic like it was nothing!

It was a little terrifying, and yet Virgil also felt like he could- could do anything, like he could pick up his keys right now and tell Logan they were going on an _adventure_ in the name of magical discovery and Logan would not only follow him but be ecstatic.

Logan could do the same, and Virgil would follow him, too - he wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.

“I love you,” he said thickly.

Logan’s confusion didn’t lessen, but it did smooth out with a little bit of fondness.

“I love you as well,” he said, “But- are you okay?”

Virgil lunged across the space between them, kissing Logan quick and fierce. Logan made a brief, muffled noise of confusion before quickly recovering and kissing Virgil back just as firmly.

Virgil pulled back, beaming.

“I’m great,” said Virgil.

The grin widened.

“Where’s the notebook?” said Virgil, “We’re doing an experiment,”

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me over at [@tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) over on tumblr!


End file.
